


the nearness of you

by brella



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Ambition, Chance Meetings, F/F, Post-Game(s), Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-05 23:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13398744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: "Umeshu Tonic, please," Sae says to a bartender on a rainy night in June, and it is this that changes everything.





	the nearness of you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xenoglossy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/gifts).



> Many joyous ChocBox greetings, xenoglossy! I totally loved your letter—we have a lot of the same tastes when it comes to P5 F/F, haha—and even though I think I matched with you on Makoto/Ann, I was just so totally into the concept of Sae/Ohya that I had to go for it. I hope you enjoy my take on them. It's a little all over the place, haha. 
> 
> The title is from "The Nearness of You," a beautiful song in its own right, but my favorite version and the one I listened to the most while writing this is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXe2C2TSkI8).

“Umeshu Tonic, please,” Sae says to a bartender on a rainy night in June, and it is this that changes everything.

Of course, she doesn’t realize that this is the catalyst, at the time. There’s hardly anything grand or exciting about it. It’s after 9 PM on Saturday, and the office has just won a big case—embezzlement and fraud, a real mess; months’ worth of investigative work—and her coworkers, rowdy as ever, have decided to celebrate at a bar. There’s a normalcy to it that Sae may have found foolish, if this was a year, two years ago—but now it nudges her heart into something like affection, like a sense of belonging. Of living properly. And so, rather than electing to stay late at the office, per her usual routine, she joins them with little resistance.

It’s Arai who proposes that they try out a place in Shinjuku ( _it’s got a great ambience_ , he says, _and Lala Escargot is a goddess_ , and no one really knows who Lala Escargot is supposed to be, but no one asks, either), an out-of-the-way bar tucked behind a staircase, called Crossroads. Sae has never heard of it, but then, her familiarity with Tokyo nightlife has never been exactly astonishing.

Seven of them traipse down the bustling, loudly illuminated street and under the twinkling sign denoting Crossroads, and there’s a table at the bar that Chiba swoops down on without delay. It does not take terribly long for conversation to turn to work matters.

Sae listens, politely and sufficiently, for a time. She smiles indulgently at one of Nakamura’s horrendous puns, and provides her succinct input when it is solicited. People come and go around them, and at some point she texts Makoto that she will be home late (for the first time in quite a long time).

_from: Makoto_

_Thank you for letting me know. I have plenty of leftovers from last night’s dinner, so don’t worry. Have fun, Sis!_

Sae smiles privately; the prim austerity of Makoto’s texts, never a punctuation mark out of place or a single emoji employed, had been amusing enough when she was in high school, but it’s especially endearing for a university student--especially considering the way her friends, like Sakamoto or Takamaki, choose to communicate.  

_to: Makoto_

_Call me if you need anything. As to the fun, I’ll do my best, although Chiba is about to ask the hostess if there’s a karaoke bar nearby, so I’m not particularly optimistic_.

_from: Makoto_

_I hope you won’t think this improper, but you_ are _at a bar. If escape isn’t an option, the next best thing is to ease the embarrassment with a drink, right?_

Sae laughs aloud through her nose at that, covering her mouth with loose fingers when her coworkers glance at her with raised eyebrows. Makoto wouldn’t have dreamed of even alluding to the idea of alcohol at Shujin. Her little sister has gotten so brazen.

_to: Makoto_

_Watch it._

_from: Makoto_

_Yes, Sis._

_from: Makoto_

_Dad liked Umeshu Tonic, right? Try that!_

Sae sighs, and shakes her head, and stands up from her seat, tucking her phone into her back pocket. And she walks to the bar, and catches the attention of the young and somewhat frazzled-looking bartender, and orders an Umeshu Tonic. And then it happens.

“Umeshu Tonic?” a voice cuts in from beside her, braying and slurred. “God, I haven’t heard anybody order that since my grandma died. You know only prudes drink that crap, right?”

Sae’s mind, according to her father, has always been sharp, quick to process and evaluate. Few things have the capacity or the gall to trip her up. It is no different now, in the one or two seconds—an infinitesimal sliver of time—that she takes to debate whether or not to rise to the bait that has just been cast rather inelegantly in front of her.

It is not the words of the woman sitting two stools down from her that give her pause. No. It is the face.

They must be about the same age—Sae has never had any trouble judging that kind of thing (with oftentimes unsettling accuracy, or so her coworkers tell her)—but this woman dresses like she’s still in college. Her dark hair is pulled back haphazardly by an orange headband, and over long white sleeves and a pair of faded jeans she is wearing a rather unsightly black t-shirt that says, in bloated neon letters, _LOW LIFE FIGHT THE POWER_. There is a pharmacy-bought cold compress for migraines smack on the top of her wide forehead.

But the face.

It’s pretty, and cunning, and flushed beyond description.

 _Ah,_ Sae thinks, as if it will provide an excuse for the rude comment, which it does not. _Drunk_.

“Beg your pardon?” she asks as civilly as she can manage, wishing with all sincerity that the bartender would hurry up with the drink so that she can take it to the table and be on her way.

“Geh,” the woman sneers, and a rather unattractive expression overtakes her features, a mingling of wariness and revulsion. Then, as if describing a symptom of the common cold, she says, “ _Public prosecutor_.”

Offense rises in Sae’s chest in an instant, only to be quelled by bewilderment. Instead of aborting the conversation right then and there, as she should, she turns more fully toward the woman, setting one hand on her hip and the other on the surface of the bar.

She narrows her eyes. “Might I ask how you would know something like that?”

The woman lifts her own drink, a stout glass with maybe two sips’ worth of clear liquor left in it, to her red, red lips. She tilts the glass, stops, considers something, and then lowers it again without having drunk from it. When she lets her head loll back, she meets Sae’s eyes lucidly, sharply. Full of disdain.

“You’ve got it written all over you,” she says, in a slow, husky drawl. “You and your _pantsuit_.” Sae bristles. Unfazed, the woman braces her elbow on the bar and leans into it, dropping her chin into her palm. “Plus, I’m the best investigative reporter in this town. Nothing gets past me.”

She says it with an easy boastfulness, eyes closed, like she’s bored. It may be the only tone she’s employed in this encounter that Sae has regarded with a modicum of respect.  

“Is that so?” Sae asks, arching an eyebrow. A part of her nearly chuckles—strange. “What’s your name? Maybe I’ve heard of you.”

“You definitely haven’t,” the woman mutters. Her cheeks bulge around a brief, petulant pout that doesn’t match her earlier bravado at all. “But I’ve heard of _you_. You were on the news, back when the Phantom Thieves were a thing. Sae Niijima, right?”

Sae can admit that she is, by this point, a bit ruffled. She’s used to her reputation preceding her, but always by name—certainly never by face, and certainly not to drunk reporters in bars in Shinjuku.

She glances down the length of the bar to find that the bartender she’d tasked with making her Umeshu Tonic has been ensnared by a particularly talkative salaryman and clearly hasn’t been on the job long enough to know how to extricate himself. She sighs quietly, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. The kid’s probably well into college, but he reminds her way too much of—

“Yes, I’m Sae Niijima,” she concedes, moving to sit on the barstool rather than continue standing. Unfortunate as it is, she’s probably going to be here a while. “Is the service always this slow around here?”

The woman seems to consider her before replying, “God, no. Lala wouldn’t stand for it if she was here, but she’s taking the night off and we’re stuck with this part-timer instead. Kid’s nice and all, but—well, bartending isn’t really suited to the _nice_ , ya know? That’s, like, the sixth conversation he’s gotten into about politics tonight.”

Sae hums, drumming her fingers briefly over a burl and letting her eyes wander over the interior of the bar. Now that she’s actually taking it in, it is almost a nice place—huddled and intimate and warmly lit, the kind of sultry crimson that always seems to invite hearts into opening, filled to the ceiling by the ambient noise of people conversing and laughing and being at ease. Soft, romantic jazz music drifts from a speaker mounted over the wine rack. It’s an old standard, played on a piano by a subtle hand, and Sae recognizes it, but can’t recall the name.

“Don’t you think it’s a little unfair that you know my name but I’ve yet to learn yours?” she asks, even though it seems a shame to interrupt such a lovely sound.

The woman burps, making a valiant attempt at demurity by covering her mouth. Her cheeks are still an impossible shade of pink, lively and unguarded, but the cast of her face, in the dim light, seems strangely sad.

She sets one finger, garnished in bright pink nail polish, on the rim of her glass, circling it carefully.

“Ichiko Ohya,” she mumbles, almost petulantly. “Nice to meet you. I guess.”

A flicker of recognition sparks in Sae’s mind, but it does not have the chance to fully form before the bartender has at last appeared with her drink, setting it on a napkin in front of her and bowing deeply, spluttering out apologies for the slow service.

“It’s not a problem,” she tells him, quirking her lips politely. “The company more than makes up for it.”

There must be a bite to her voice when she says it, a well-placed whisper of sardonicism, because out of the corner of her eye she sees Ohya bristle and flush. As the bartender walks away, Ohya tosses back the rest of her drink in one go and shudders afterwards.  

“Well,” she grumbles after a good moment during which Sae stares at her, drink in one hand, unmoving, “you’ve got your drink, haven’t you? Shouldn’t you get back to your lawyer friends?”

Sae gives a slight start, realizing that she had almost entirely forgotten that she had come here with her coworkers at all. Inclining her head over her shoulder, she sees them still clustered around the table, talking chaotically and emphatically over each other now that they’re properly drunk. Maki (whose office is next to Sae’s), her hair tied in a smart ponytail, is slamming a hand repeatedly on the table, sharply spouting off statistics about the rising poverty rate among single women in the country. The men are watching her with dumbfounded expressions.

“I suppose I _should_ ,” Sae says, “in the strictest sense of the word.” She turns back to Ohya, taking in the sight of her slumped over the bar, one cheek resting on her arm, gazing woefully at her empty glass. “But as far as _could_ goes… if it’s all the same to you, I could also stay here and have my drink with you, and you could tell me all about what it was like to report on the Phantom Thieves.”

Ohya makes a noise that doubles her over, and it sounds suspiciously like she has just inhaled her own spit. Sae conceals her amusement behind a sip of the Umeshu tonic—tart and simple, nostalgic for reasons she can’t explain.

“You—” Ohya sputters, beating a fist against her chest, eyes watering, and when she whips her head to Sae, her face is comically stunned. “ _You_ _read_ my—?”

“Certainly I did,” Sae answers primly, setting the glass down on the bar with a _clink_. “Whatever ideas you may have about my profession, Ohya—and you clearly have many—we don’t live under rocks, you know. You made quite a name for yourself, back in the day.”

“Don’t say that like it was _decades_ ago,” Ohya groans, dropping her head back and covering her face with both hands. “God. I can’t believe this. _You_ read my articles.” She peeks at Sae through her fingers, eyebrows crumpled in a grimace. “And?”

Sae busies herself with her drink as a play at being coy. “And what?”

“You know damn well what,” Ohya snaps.

And Sae does. Sae knows many things damn well, if she’s being honest. She also knows the vague prodding of recognition, a kind of deteriorated familiarity, that has been growing in her chest over the course of this interaction, one that encompasses more than just what Ichiko Ohya’s name had looked like under a headline. She knows this strange mixture of blustering ego and ungainly modesty, the push and pull of conversing with the woman beside her. Her mind has been rifling methodically through her memories for the past several minutes and has turned up nothing of note—had this feeling been born at Shujin, university, a fleeting afternoon in court?—and it’s beginning to annoy her.

She knows, too, what she had thought of Ohya’s articles when she had first read them—she had sneered and scoffed and snapped each publication closed as though it had shown her a lewd image, had shaken her head sternly at the young interns who had talked animatedly over them in the break room, scrolling through their phones, eyes darting ravenously over the words; she had said aloud, without hesitation, that they were absolute nonsense, nothing but glorified opinion pieces disguising themselves as fact, loaded with bias and vagueness and devoid of even a modicum of journalistic integrity. The very mention of the publication in which they were serialized came to be a taboo in her presence; even Makoto had avoided it.

Revisiting them over a year later, though—offhandedly, by accident, through a link in a different article reflecting on the Phantom Thieves’ (mis)deeds—she had seen a great deal more. Passion and hope and pride, all with a ferocity she could scarcely imagine anyone having in the jaded, bitter world she had convinced herself was her only lot in life for too long of a time. It had almost stirred at something in her, really; it had very nearly _moved_ her. Her heart had been hammering at perhaps a pace or two more rapidly than usual, and maybe it had not stopped since, made lighter and more alive by nothing more than the words: _I believe in the Phantom Thieves, just as they believe in us. Change isn’t given. It has to be taken._

She opens her mouth, and her breath catches softly in her throat, and a pleasant warmth begins to touch her cheeks and neck. Ohya is a marvel, really. It hadn’t occurred to her until just this moment how much she’d wanted to meet her.

“They were inspiring,” she settles on saying. Then, knowing that will likely not satisfy Ohya’s reporter’s pride, she adds, “Thoroughly researched and smartly written. Ahead of their time, in every sense.”

Ohya doesn’t say anything back for several moments; she only watches Sae through her still-raised hands, eyes searching her for some trace of insincerity, for something she can resent. Sae waits, and has some more of her drink, content to enjoy the taste.

“God, you’ve changed.”

The words are so unexpected, particularly in the tender, wistful tone on which they’re built, that it takes Sae a second longer than it should to realize that they had come from Ohya. She looks over at her sharply, brow furrowing in confusion, a rush of questions clamoring at the forefront of her mind: _changed from what_ , for one, and, _how would you know?_

“I’m sorry?” she says, stymied, struggling to brush away her bewilderment when she takes in Ohya’s pose: hands hovering, in front of her chest, shoulders slumped, bright eyes almost glistening; an oblique smile hangs on her face, half awe and half respect.

Ohya gives a slight start, then, as though she has just been pinched awake, and in an instant, the emotion in her expression vanishes. She drops her hands into her lap, pauses for a moment, and then shrugs, back to her prior smugness.

“Eh, forget I said anything,” she drawls, and then, before Sae can fathom a response, she stands, and the barstool groans briefly along the floor when she does.

She fishes a yen bill from her back pocket and slaps it onto the bar next to her empty glass, and yawns behind one hand, stretching the other above her head.

“I’m gonna call it a night,” she says, as if to no one in particular. She waves vaguely at Sae over her shoulder when she turns to go, and does not look at her. “It was nice talking with you, public prosecutor. Good luck with your… I dunno. Memos, and junk.”

By the time Sae settles on the proper exclamation of disbelief, Ohya has already slipped out into the street, shouldering on a bright orange raincoat from the coat rack by the door without looking back. Her perfume lingers faintly in the air. Sae does not finish her drink.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sae is two blocks from Crossroads at one in the morning, straggling a few paces behind the throng that has become of her colleagues as they hold each other up, when she remembers.

She was twenty-two, fresh out of university, and she had just been granted a prestigious internship at the public prosecutor’s office. She had worn her hair short then, a silver fringe tucked behind her ears, and she had been so full of ambition that she had often felt she would choke on it.

It had been at the end of a court session, nearly 3 PM, and the prosecutor to whom she had been assigned, a well-respected and strict woman named Natsuko Soejima, had told her in a huff to deal with the press, for she had a migraine and wished to head straight back to the office. Sae, whose desire to prove her competency had, back then, oftentimes overridden her instinct for self-preservation, had readily agreed, feeling quite valiant defending her sensei from the horde of shouting voices and waving microphones and clicking shutters (she’d had quite the crush on Soejima, hadn’t she, she remembers now, with a little laugh).

“Excuse me!” a voice had squawked from an indistinct direction, somewhere near the back. “Yo, Niijima!”

It had somehow drowned out all the others more experienced and assertive than it, and Sae, who had just finished a very eloquent and expertly evasive answer to a ridiculously specific question from _The Mainichi Shimbun_ , had been complacent enough from her victory to foolishly search for the source. Her eyes had fallen on a girl no older than she, fighting her way through the crowd, waving a cheap tape recorder over her head, sporting a gaudy pair of reflective orange aviators that lay askew over her eyes.

Sae must have looked uncharacteristically taken aback, for she heard a rush of snapping from the cameras, and reminded herself to properly resent this disruptor for that later.

“Yes?” she had answered, eyes narrowing. “What paper are you from?”

Many of the other reporters had begun to dissipate, satisfied with the answers she had provided, still frantically scribbling many of them into their notebooks. Few remained, within seconds, but the girl, a glaringly obvious amateur, in fashionably baggy overalls and worn-out sneakers and a black turtleneck, with her hair in a haphazard bun that was beginning to come loose.

“Can I ask you kind of a personal question?” the girl had asked, grinning mischievously, and when she lifted her sunglasses with one stuck-out thumb, she revealed scrunched eyes and a dusting of freckles.

Sae had coughed back a snide remark, flabbergasted by the attention, and also by the profound cuteness of the girl’s face.

“I hardly think that’s appropri—”

“What inspired you to pursue a career in law?” the girl had cut her off, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and when she leaned in raptly, Sae could smell her perfume, cheap but sweet. “And also, what’s your phone number?”

She’d been doing well enough, up until the second part—Sae had not, in all of the months as intern to the public prosecutor’s office of Tokyo, been asked any question that even remotely solicited her opinion or qualifications, and was more accustomed to being asked her star sign, blood type, or thoughts on the latest popular boy band—but in an instant the fragile illusion of respectful curiosity was dashed, and she was left feeling flummoxed and embarrassed, a sensation that had quickly and defensively congealed into offense.

“What a waste of talent,” she had heard herself say, low and spiteful, and then she had turned away without another word, stalking across the street to the subway station, content to let the commute crowd swallow her up. Something in that bright and ambitious smile had cut at a vulnerable part of her, and had twisted her stomach with wanting, with jealousy. 

She had not seen the girl since.

The vividness of the memory halts her in her tracks, eyes fixed on the wet pavement beneath her boots. The air feels unseasonably colder, sharper—a rueful breath escapes her in a cloud and then vanishes.

Her colleagues don’t notice that she’s fallen behind, all of them laughing freely at something Mizutani has said; the sound fills up the streets of Shibuya as something else had, several years ago, a kind of joyful defiance that could only be inspired by something larger than oneself, a belief in justice and truth and happy endings.

Sae watches them go, hands loosely clinging to the strap of her handbag. She hadn’t realized, until just now, how different they looked when they were happy.

She cranes her neck over her shoulder without thinking, as though expecting to see Ohya behind her, tape recorder in hand: _What are your thoughts on happiness, Niijima? How would you describe this feeling?_

Sae briefly ghosts her fingers over her chest, as though she will find the answer there, beating away. It is easier to fathom than it used to be, when it was buried beneath brick and wall and chain, but still some of it eludes her. Ohya would know just the word, wouldn’t she?

She closes her fingers and smiles, shaking her head. She’ll have to go back to Crossroads sometime, and give Ohya the answer she deserves.


End file.
